'Copper' shines a light on 1860s New York

Donal Logue, as Gen. Brendan Donovan, joins the cast of BBC America's "Copper" in season two.

BBC America's visceral New York drama "Copper" may be set in 1865, but showrunner Tom Kelly says we still haven't resolved all the issues its characters were trying to sort out.

"It's a tableau of New York at that time," he says. "The war is about to end, and we're finding out just what kind of city it's going to be going forward. But so many of the things they're talking about, we're still grappling with 150 years later."

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One of the reasons Kelly was brought in for the second season, which launches Sunday night at 10, was to shift the show's focus from weekly crime dramas to "longer character arcs."

By happy coincidence, three of them just happened to be right there waiting.

There's the appropriately named Dr. Matthew Freeman (Ato Essandoh), a black doctor who has settled in New York with his wife, Sarah (Tessa Thompson).

The fact that Sarah's brother was lynched in the draft riots of 1863 serves as a stark reminder that racial justice was a goal, not a reality.

Robert Morehouse (Kyle Schmid) is a wealthy heir who was wounded in the war.

"Morehouse was the kind of rich kid who used to go 'downtown' just to piss his father off," says Kelly. "But serving in the war, he [discovered] other classes were people, too, and it's changed the way he looks at everything.

"He's also a representative of a class that's wondering if maybe its time hasn't already started to pass."

Kyle Schmid, who plays the wealthy Robert Morehouse, and Anastasia Griffith

The third focal-point character is Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones), one of those working-class people Morehouse met in the war. Back home in New York, Corcoran is the "copper" of the show's title.

"He's a policeman of his day," says Kelly, a novelist who previously worked on CBS' "Blue Bloods." "You see a little bit of forensics, but basically police work then meant beating someone until they told you what you wanted to hear."

That said, Kelly sees Corcoran as "basically a good man. Given the choice, he will do the decent, humane thing. His problem is that sometimes none of the choices are very appealing."

In the show's larger arc, Corcoran is the Irishimmigrant who became a cop because he wants to help serve the cause of justice, but also because it's a job no other ethnic group wanted.

"This story is about how Corcoran becomes an American," says Kelly. "He got off the boat and the first thing he hears is, 'You're not one of us.' And he says, 'F--- you, yes, I am.' "

What's also critical to the broader story this season, says Kelly, is the introduction of Donal Logue as Gen. Brendan Donovan, a Tammany Hall ward leader who thinks there's great untapped power in the oppressed masses and sets out to harness it.

"He gets to New York, and he sees a battle for the whole original idea of America being fought in the streets," says Kelly. "He's offering an ode to the American dream. But how it will play out depends on who runs the city."